Reliving the Future
by epicfrenchfry
Summary: The gods and the two demigod camps read the Percy Jackson series. Rated T because I'm like that
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1- A Note

"For the last time, Leo, Percy's story is way too long to tell without messing up!" sighed Annabeth in exasperation. It was time for the campfire at Camp Half-Blood and Leo was harassing Annabeth about Percy. There was suddenly a blinding white glow and everybody fell over. When they got up again, the gods and goddesses of Olympus stood before them.

"Why are we here?" Zeus demanded. "It's the winter solstice and we were getting ready for discussion for the meeting tonight!" Chiron nervously swished his tail and looked at his half-brother (he would be his brother, since Kronos was both of their dads, right?).

"Lord Zeus, we can figure this out later-" He was interrupted by a box falling from the sky and landing on Leo's head.

"Ooooow..." he moaned. Annabeth ignored him and picked up the box. Hermes took it from her and opened it up.

"_To the gods/goddesses of the past and campers of the present: We, the awesome gods Hermes and Apollo, are sending you these books so Annabeth doesn't have to keep explaining things."_

"Thanks the gods." she muttered. Apollo flashed a grin and snatched the note from Hermes.

"_The campers will introduce themselves and then you will read the books at the campfire. The winter solstice can wait. Just so you know, you might get visitors soon._" Apollo looked at the campers and waited.

"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and architect of Olympus." Athena nodded approvingly and Annabeth sat back down.

"Leo 'the flaming' Valdez, son of Hephaestus and fire user." He grinned and made flames dance across his fingers before sitting back down and proceeding to make a miniature automaton out of his fork and spoon.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter and praetor of the Twelfth Legion." Zeus' form flickered and turned Roman for a second before returning to normal.

"Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite and charm-speaker." Aphrodite eyed the tattered jeans her daughter wore but smiled warmly at her.

"Clarisse, daughter of Ares and slayer of the drakon." Ares gave his daughter a thumbs up.

"Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, but I was born before the oath and put in the Lotus Hotel for about seventy years so I didn't age." Hades smiled at his son's defense.

The introductions went on and when they were done, there was another flash and another crowd of people appeared. A girl with black hair and glittering dark brown eyes stood and bowed to the gods.

"Reyna, daughter of Bellona and praetor of the Twelfth Legion."

"Octavian, descendant of Apollo and augur for Camp Jupiter." Apollo tried to hide it, but he wasn't too impressed.

"Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto and rider of Arion." Hades flickered to his Roman form and back.

"Frank Zhang, son of Mars." Ares didn't change much, his armor just switched to Roman.

The rest of the Roman demigods introduced themselves and finally, the two camps, the gods, and the goddesses traveled to the ampitheater for the campfire. Zeus carried the box and sat down in the front row, facing the campers. He opened box nd took out the first book, a blue-green one with a picture of a boy in an orange shirt holding a sword and a horn on the cover.

"It says, _Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief_." Annabeth's eyes widened and she gasped audibly. Athena looked at her inquiringly but asked Zeus,

"Well, start reading!"

"Who wants to read?" Zeus questioned, holding the book high.

"I will." Annabeth said. The book floated over to her and she turned a couple pages. "I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Alegebra Teacher."

Like? Does it interest you? I hope so.


	2. Chapter 2

**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra** **Teacher. **read Annabeth.

"How do you 'accidentally' vaporize someone?" Leo asked incredulously. (yeah he's gonna be a frequent contributor.) Annabeth shrugged.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"Did any of us?" said a Hecate kid.  
**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That's actually not bad advice." said Clarisse.  
**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"Got that right." grumbled Thalia. The Hunters were visiting Camp Half-Blood for the day because of the solstice meeting.

** If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**  
** But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"He makes it sound like the FBI is after us." Travis Stoll sighed.  
**Don't say I didn't warn you.** Connor Stoll opened his mouth but Annabeth silenced him with a glare.  
**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"No really!" said Ares sarcastically.  
**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"YES!" screamed half the camp.  
**Yeah. You could say** **that.**

"He even admits it!"

** I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

Several kids sighed with pity and the gods glared at them.  
** I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.**

"It doesn't sound like torture!" Athena cried.

"I'd rather get swallowed by father _again_." Poseidon glared at his rival.  
** But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**  
**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"Chiron, that sounds like you." Zeus said. Chiron smiled guiltily.

** You wouldn't think he'd be cool,**

"Gee, thanks Percy." frowned Chiron.

** -but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

Both Annabeth and Athena looked scandalized. "He slept in _school?!"_  
** I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"Yeah, that'll happen." Thalia rolled her eyes.  
** Boy, was I wrong.** Annabeth smirked.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.** Hermes and his kids were howling with laughter.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"No, no, please continue!" pleaded Travis.  
**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"Why?" questioned Apollo.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter and ketchup sandwich.** Annabeth and Thalia growled while the Aphrodite kids shrieked in disgust.  
**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"That's a nice way to describe your best friend." Grover sighed.

** He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Way to blow your cover, Grover." Travis and Connor said at the same time. Grover blushed.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip. **  
** "I'm going to kill her," I** **mumbled.**

"DO IT!" screamed Ares.  
** Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"Not with ketchup, though! That was nasty." Grover complained.  
** He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. **  
** "That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. **  
** "You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

"That's not fair!" Artemis cried. When the others looked at her, she blushed. Even if she didn't like guys, she believed in fair treatment for everyone.  
** Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. **

"Good." said Poseidon. The others eyed him but kept quiet.

** He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**  
** It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. **

"Longer." murmured the gods.  
** He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye. **  
** Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Alecto?" Hades whispered, quiet enough so that no one heard him.

** From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. **

"CRUEL!" screamed the Stolls.  
** One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Nice, Grover." Hermes rolled his eyes.  
** Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. **  
** Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**  
** It came out louder than I meant it to. **

"Of course it did, Seaweed Brain." Annabeth sighed.  
** The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. **  
** "Mr. Jackson, " he said, "did you have a comment?"**

** My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**  
** Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**  
** I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" **The gods who were swallowed shuddered.  
** "Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."**  
** "Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"GOD?" Zeus roared.  
** "God?" Mr. Brunner asked. **  
** "Titan," I corrected myself.**

"Good." Zeus said childishly.

** "And ... He didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

** "Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me. **  
** "-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"He just summed up the biggest war in history in one sentence." mumbled Zeus in awe.

"He has a talent for that." smiled Annabeth. Aphrodite cast out her mind and felt a flicker of affection from the child of Athena. She smiled. A child of Athena and a child of Poseidon? That was an interesting combination. She would work on that.  
** Some snickers from the group. **  
**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, **

"She has friends?" said Clarisse in surprise.

** "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**  
** "And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted." sang the Stoll brothers.  
** "Busted," Grover muttered. **

"We think like a goat!" chorused the Stolls.

"Good for you, bad for me." Grover said.  
** "Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. **  
** At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

** I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"That's a shocker." said Nico sarcastically. He'd been so quiet everyone had forgotten about him, but now Annabeth glared at him.  
** "I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Way to change the subject, Chiron." Poseidon said.  
** The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Boys_ are_ doofuses." sniffed Artemis.  
** Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**  
** I knew that was coming.** **I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

"He's polite to me but not the gods." Chiron shook his head.  
** Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Older than that, but they have." Athena said.  
** "You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me. **  
** "About the Titans?"**  
** "About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**  
** "Oh."**

"Your typical Percy answer." sighed Annabeth.  
** "What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**  
** I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"Sorry Percy." Chiron whispered.

** I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good, he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. **  
** I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"I was." he sighed. "Her name was Adonia."

** He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. **  
** The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. **  
** Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had** **massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. **

"What are you two fighting about _now_?" Hera sighed. Poseidon and Zeus shrugged.  
** Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"Yours?" asked Athena. Hermes shrugged, but the Hermes cabin prayed to Zeus that she wasn't.  
** Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere. **

"Did it work?" asked Nico.

"No." Grover replied sadly.  
** "Detention?" Grover asked. **  
** "Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius. "**

"You got that right!" grinned Nico. The next second, Thalia had shocked him and Annabeth had punched him.  
** Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

"Wooow, Grover. That was the worst fail I've ever read about!" Annabeth laughed.  
** I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

** I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. **

"Mama's boy." Clarisse smirked. Annabeth threw her a glare.  
** Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table. **

"DUUUUDE!" screamed Leo excitedly. "I have GOT to make one of those!" He grinned like a maniac and went back to his automaton made of silverware.  
** I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"I thought she already wasted her lunch on the bus?" Athena thought out loud.

"Who cares about that? HOW DARE SHE!" shrieked Thalia while Annabeth calmly polished her dagger with an evil smile on her face.  
** "Oops. " She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray- painted her face with liquid Cheetos. **  
** I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. **Zeus and Hades looked suspiciously at Poseidon, but said nothing. It might just have been a figure of speech.  
** I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**  
** Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. **

At the word 'materialized', everyone said "Monster."  
** Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**  
** "-the water-"**  
** "-like it grabbed her-"**

"POSEIDON!" screamed Zeus and Hades. The sea god glared at his brothers.

"Zeus, I wouldn't talk. You broke the oath twice. And Hades, you broke it too. That girl." He pointed at Hazel.

"Actually," Hazel said, "I was born WAAAY before the oath, but I died at thirteen and Nico brought me back from the Underworld. Please continue reading now."

** I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. **

"Again." snorted Thalia.  
** As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc. , etc. , Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something** **she'd been waiting for all semester. **

"Probably was waiting for it. He just revealed he was a demigod." said Hestia, who'd been silent up until then.

** "Now, honey-"**  
** "I know, " I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks. "**

"Percy..." Annabeth groaned.  
** That wasn't the right thing to say. **

"Obviously it wouldn't be!"  
** "Come with me, " Mrs. Dodds said. **  
** "Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her. "**  
** I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death. **

"Wimp." said Ares. Grover blushed and looked down.

"At least he's loyal to his friend!" defended Artemis.  
** She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. **  
** "I don't think so, Mr. Underwood, " she said. **  
** "But-"**

** "You-will-stay-here. "  
Grover looked at me desperately. **

** "It's okay, man, " I told him. "Thanks for trying. "**  
** "Honey, " Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now. "**  
** Nancy Bobofit smirked. **  
** I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. **

"I hate that stare." moaned Nico and a few other kids.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on. **  
** How'd she get there so fast?**

"Inhuman speed? Monster." breathed Annabeth.  
** I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things. **  
** I wasn't so sure. **  
** I went after Mrs. Dodds. **  
** Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Chiron! Why weren't you paying attention?" Annabeth stared at the centaur in disbelief.

"I was!" he defended. "But if I got up to step in, he wouldn't have found out he was a demigod. I was waiting for the right time."

** I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. **  
** Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. **  
** But apparently that wasn't the plan. **

** I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.  
Except for us, the gallery was empty. **

"That's not good." said Leo.**  
Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.  
Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it... **

"Another sign she's a monster." said Annabeth.**  
"You've been giving us problems, honey, " she said.  
I did the safe thing.**

"Since when does he do that?" said Clarisse.

** I said, "Yes, ma'am. "  
She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. **  
** She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"You wish she wouldn't." snorted Thalia. "He's so oblivious!"

** I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am. "**  
** Thunder shook the building. **  
** "We are not fools, Percy Jackson, " Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

"Confess to what?" Poseidon demanded. Nobody answered.  
** I didn't know what she was talking about. **  
** All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. **

"Go Percy!" cheered the Stolls.

** Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Athena looked horrified. "He doesn't like _reading_?"

** "Well?" she demanded. **  
** "Ma'am, I don't... "**  
** "Your time is up, " she hissed. **  
** Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"HADES! WHY'D YOU SEND A FURY AFTER MY SON?" roared the sea god.

"I don't know! I haven't done it yet!"  
** Then things got even stranger. Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand. **  
** "What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"Chiron to the rescue!" smiled Thalia.

"What's a pen going to do?" One of the new campers rolled his eyes.

"You'll see." Annabeth smirked.

** Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. **  
** With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. **

"Oh." said the camper.  
** Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. **  
** My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"WIMP!" Ares said again. Annabeth gave him her worst glare yet.  
** She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"Alright, the whole 'honey' thing is getting annoying."  
** And she flew straight at me. **  
** Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword. **

"If that comes naturally, he'll do well when he arrives at the Roman camp." Jason muttered to Annabeth.  
** The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

"What's with the sound effects?" asked Leo. Silence.

** Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. **

"Good metaphor." said Athena admiringly.

** She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

"Creepy." said Leo.

** I was alone.  
There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.  
Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.  
My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. **

"Magic mushrooms? Boys are stupid." said a Hunter.**  
Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"No." said Leo.  
** I went back outside.** **It had started to rain. **  
** Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" asked many of the campers. Annabeth read the next line and smirked.  
** I said, "Who?"**  
** "Our teacher. Duh!"**  
** I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. **  
** She just rolled her eyes and turned away.** **I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was. **  
** He said, "Who?"** **But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me. **

"You need lying lessons. Meet us tomorrow at 9 AM." said Travis.  
** "Not funny, man, " I told him. "This is serious. "**  
** Thunder boomed overhead. **  
** I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. **  
** I went over to him. **  
** He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson. "**  
** I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**  
** "Sir, " I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

** He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

"That's a master at work." said Connor admiringly.

"I've had thousands of years of practice." Chiron smiled.**  
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

** He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"I'm so proud." sniffed Travis. Connor pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. "You're such a good liar."

"ANYWAY," said Annabeth loudly. "That's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read next?"

"I will."


	3. Chapter 3

"I will." said a voice from the shadows. Everybody craned their necks to see who the newcomer was, while those who recognized the voice went pale. The Romans, who had been completely silent so far, murmured with anticipation. Though they felt awkward reading about someone they didn't know, in a camp they had never heard of, with a bunch of people they didn't know, they were curious.

Percy stepped forward. His crooked smile seemed to light up the faces of his friends, but his eyes sought out one face in particular. Annabeth stood shakily and stared at him. "Percy?"

"Annabeth!" he cried. His face ecstatic, they ran toward each other. Athena's face was disbelieving, Poseidon's was horror-filled, but Aphrodite was mentally squealing. Thalia was smirking.

"Gods, I missed you Percy!" Annabeth hugged him tightly and leaned against him. A couple seconds passed, and just as Thalia was about to yell at them to sit down, they kissed. Aphrodite squealed, deafening everybody within a mile of her, and applauded. They broke apart and sat down, red-faced and awkward. Annabeth handed Percy the book and he opened it up. When he read the first sentence, he groaned.

"So we're reading my personal thoughts?"

"Yup. So far, we've decided that you have extremely weird thoughts." Leo grinned. Percy glanced at the title and sighed.

"It'll only get worse, trust me." he said. He sighed again and began to read.

** I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen before in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas. **

** Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. **  
** It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed. **  
** Almost.**

"I bet it's your fault, Grover." said Travis. Percy smirked.

** But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying. **  
** Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum. **

"No duh." said Dionysus nastily.  
** I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. **

Several demigods winced.  
** The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. **

"You two need to learn how to control your anger." Hera scolded.  
** I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. **  
** Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good. **

When Athena and her kids started laughing, Annabeth explained. "It means 'old drunk'." Everybody else started to laugh and Percy blushed.  
** The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. **  
** Fine, I told myself. Just fine. **  
** I was homesick. I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

** And yet... There were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. **

"I'm glad to see you had faith in me, Perce." Grover said sarcastically.  
** I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. **  
** As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him. **  
** The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, **

"I do now." Percy said. Poseidon looked worriedly at his son.

** or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"You're not very optimistic, are you?" asked Athena. Percy shook his head.

** I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. **  
** I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. **  
** I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried. **

"Teacher's pet." coughed Clarisse. Both Chiron and Percy looked at her with a slightly offended expression.  
** I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. **  
** I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "...worried about Percy, sir." I froze.**  
** I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"He has a point." said Apollo.  
** I inched closer. **  
** "... Alone this summer, " Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"**  
** "We would only make matters worse by rushing him, " Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more. "**  
** "But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- "**

"The what?" asked the people who didn't now.  
** "Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can. "**  
** "Sir, he saw her..."**

**"His imagination, " Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that. "**  
** "Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again. " Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean. "**

Thalia growled and stood up. "Grover, you did NOT fail and don't let me ever hear you blame yourself ever again. The Romans looked between her and the satyr and seemed to finally make the connection between the Grover in the book and the satyr.

"Why is a faun out in the mortal world?" questioned Reyna.

"They search out demigods and bringing them to camp before the monsters get them." said Thalia. Reyna shrugged and decided maybe thy should do that with their fauns.  
** "You haven't failed, Grover, " Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"**  
** The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud. **  
** Mr. Brunner went silent. **  
** My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. **  
** A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my** **wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow. **

"Why would you be in full-form?" asked Annabeth curiously. "You could have been found!"

"I was desperate for a stretch and I assumed Grover would have sensed anyone walking by."

"I was distracted talking to you!" Grover sighed.  
** I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. **  
** A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. **  
** A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. **  
** Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**  
** "Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn..."**  
** "Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**  
** "Don't remind me."**

** The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. **  
** I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. **  
** Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. **  
** Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night. **  
** "Hey, " he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**  
** I didn't answer. **  
** "You look awful. " He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**  
** "Just... Tired. "**

** I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. **

"That might have worked," Grover said, "but I can read emotions, and you were very troubled."  
** I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. **  
** But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger. **

"That's because you were." said Grover.  
** The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Three hours? Even I think that's cruel." Athena frowned.

** my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. **  
** For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. **  
** "Percy, " he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... It's for the best."**  
** His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. **

"She likes him." Aphrodite smiled.

** I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**  
** "I mean..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**  
** My eyes stung. **  
** Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out. **  
** "Right, " I said, trembling. **  
** "No, no, " Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say... You're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-"**

"Chiron!" Grover cried. "That was mean!"

"It was. It made me feel like crap." Percy added. Chiron sighed.

** "Thanks, " I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me." **  
** "Percy-"**  
** But I was already gone. **  
** On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. **  
** The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Hey!" cried Poseidon indignantly.  
** They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. **  
** What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall. **

** "Oh, " one of the guys said. "That's cool."**  
** They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. **

"That's rude." Hestia said.

"They're boys, what do you expect?" Artemis  
** The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city. **

"You made me sound like a stalker!" Grover complained. Percy patted his shoulder.  
** During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. **  
** Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**  
** I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Percy, you probably scared him to death!" Annabeth reprimanded.

"I nearly wet myself." Grover admitted.

** Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"**  
** I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. **  
** Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**  
** "Oh... Not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**  
** He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers..."**

"Demon math teachers." Leo snorted. Everybody looked at him funny.  
** "Grover-"**  
** "And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and..."**  
** "Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

** His ears turned pink. **  
** From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer." **  
** The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, **

"Why would you do that to them?" sighed Zeus. "This was a punishment or you, not them!"

"It's funny watching them try and read it." Dionysus smirked.

** but I finally made out something like:**  
** Grover Underwood**  
** Keeper**  
** Half-Blood Hill**  
** Long Island, New York**  
** (800) 009-0009**

** "What's Half-"**  
** "Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um... Summer address." **  
** My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. **  
** "Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**  
** He nodded.**

"You let him believe you were rich and had a fancy mansion? Wow Grover." Thalia shook her head in mock disappointment.

** "Or... Or if you need me."**  
** "Why would I need you?"**  
** It came out harsher than I meant it to. **

"Of course it did. It always does." Nico grumbled.  
** Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."**

** I stared at him. **  
** All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. **  
** "Grover, " I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**

"Everything." Grover said to the book.  
** There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. **  
** After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. **  
** We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

"I could really use some fruit." said Demeter thoughtfully.

"PLEASE, CONTINUE _NOW_!" Hades begged.

** The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies **

Athena caught her breath.

** sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen. **

Annabeth paled.  
** I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. **  
** All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. **  
** The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me. **

By now, everyone else seemed to understand who they were.  
** I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

** "Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"**  
** "Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**  
** "Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Normally I would laugh but right now, that is definitely NOT the time for humor." said Leo seriously. Those who knew him stared at him in disbelief. Leo? Turning down a funny joke? The world must be ending.  
** "Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all. "**

"See? The goat agrees!" Leo tried defending himself, but only ended up getting punched by Grover.  
** The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath. **

So did everybody else. They looked at Percy as if to make sure he was alive.  
** "We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**  
** "What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**  
** "Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

"Of course he did." said Thalia, rolling her eyes.

"Seaweed Brain." Annabeth sighed.

** Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. **

Annabeth buried her face in Percy's shirt. "Gods no." she moaned.

** Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Only you, Perce." Grover said.  
** At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. **  
** The passengers cheered. **  
** "Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**  
** Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. **

Everybody was now staring at Percy in awe. The Fates decreed his death, but here he was, alive?  
** Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering. **  
** "Grover?"**

** "Yeah?"**  
** "What are you not telling me?"**

"Everything." said Jason.  
** He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**  
** "You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"Much, much worse." Annabeth said, her voice muffled.  
** His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**  
** "The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**  
** He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.**

"You're very observant." Athena said, tilting her head slightly and staring quizzically at Percy.

"Uh, thanks?"  
** He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

** "Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. **  
** "This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

Thalia punched Grover in the arm. "It's not your fault!"  
** "What last time?"**  
** "Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

Thalia punched Grover again.  
** "Grover, " I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**  
** "Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

"Stalker!" sang the Stolls.  
** This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could. **  
** "Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.** **No answer. **  
** "Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"Yup." said Travis, popping the 'p' and grinning.  
** He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"He probably was, since he's such a pessimist." Thalia glared at the satyr, who gulped.

"That'll be it for tonight. We can continue reading after breakfast." Chiron took the book from Percy and put it on an empty seat. He turned and mad to approach his favorite student, but Percy suddenly glowed white and everybody froze to stare at him and he faded. His face was stricken and he obviously didn't want to go, but the glow grew blinding and he vanished.

"Nooo!" Annabeth moaned. "I only just got you back..." Another note appeared where Percy was sitting. "_Percy was called back by Lupa. It's morning where they are, so you should have him back for the next chapter._" The Romans brightened at the mention of the she-wolf, but then they began to wonder why a _Greek_ demigod was training with her.

"Romans, you can bunk with the Greek equivalents of your parents. So, Mars campers with the Ares campers, Bacchus campers in the Dionysus cabin, etc." Chriron continued.

"What about Bellona? _She_ doesn't have a Greek equal." asked Reyna boldly. Chiron thought for a moment.

"War goddess. Hmm, I guess you should bunk with the Athena kids." When the sleeping arrangements were settled and the gods were placed to sleep in their own cabins, the fire died and Camp Half-Blood fell silent.


End file.
